American “progressives” portray themselves as “forward-looking,” advocates of a higher and better freedom than the traditional American conception of liberty as freedom from government coercion and control. In fact, they are the intellectual great-grandchildren of the “reactionary” nineteenth century Imperial German “Iron Chancellor,” Otto von Bismarck.

Arguably the single most successful endeavor undertaken by Congress in the past 20 years was its effort to enact significant reform of the U.S. welfare system. Even greater success is possible, with simple steps that states can take to help millions of impoverished people transition from government dependency to the freedom and self-sufficiency provided by a high-quality job.

As we know – America’s media is for the most part decidedly Leftist, often befuddled and rarely right. So when they wade into an intricate issue like President Barack Obama’s Net Neutrality Internet power grab – we can only expect even more Leftism, befuddlement and wrongness.

The data may show Earth experienced its hottest year on record in 2014, but that would not be proof humans are causing global warming. It wouldn’t even prove the year was the hottest on record, or even particularly hot.

Looming Environmental Protection Agency ozone regulations personify the Obama administration’s secrecy, collusion, fraud, and disdain for concerns about the effects that its tsunami of regulations is having on the livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare of millions of American families.

Perhaps it’s not surprising coming from our first Community Organizer president that the trait the administration claims is most needed in an “Ebola czar” — not that it’s been shown that such a position needs to be created in the first place — is, as Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health put it, “somebody who’s a good organizer.”

More than seven billion people now populate Earth, including six billion who live in developing economies. After having already quadrupled in the past century, the world’s population could reach near 9 billion by 2050, according to projections by the United Nations. Half of that growth will come from Africa, which will increase its percentage of world population from 13 to 20 percent.

Penn Jillette, the world-famous magician (and fellow of the Cato Institute), has a saying: “Everybody got a gris-gris.” By that, Jillette means everyone has some irrational belief or superstition, something one believes even when knowing it is an unreasonable. We carry these superstitions through life like talismans, and we defend them when confronted with the cold light of reason. My gris-gris is NASA.

Ezra Klein recently released a 2-minute clip explaining the need for individual mandates under Obamacare. Man, does that guy talk fast!

Mr. Klein gets most of his explanation about right, with one big exception. He says that a family making $80,000 a year will (eventually) be penalized $2,000 for failing to buy coverage — “less money than health insurance will usually cost you, but you don’t get anything for that money,” he says. Uh, that’s understating things quite a bit. A family insurance policy costs $16,351 according to the most recent employer benefits survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The TSA does not make us perfectly safe. I don’t care much about being x-rayed and patted down, but it is not much more helpful than the old, discarded “security” question about whether I packed my own bag. The U.S. could learn from the Israelis and focus on behavior and likely terrorists.

Following incidents in Washington state, Mexico and Tennessee, theNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it would probe fires that occurred recently over a six week period inTesla Motors’ electric Model S. And this week, as revealed in aDetroit News story, the NHTSA looks like they’re serious – at least more serious than Germany’s transportation safety authority.